East 59 Cafe

East 59 Cafe traces its roots back to 2013, when Amber and Stephen Tolbert, together with a handful of neighboring families in Birmingham’s East Lake neighborhood, noticed there was nowhere for the community to gather. They tested the idea through a Rev Birmingham business incubator pop-up shop in October of that year, gathering feedback from about six hundred neighbors who helped shape what the cafe would eventually become. That grassroots, neighbor built origin story still defines the business today, even as it has grown into one of Hoover’s most recognizable family owned cafes.

The Hoover location at 701 Doug Baker Boulevard, in the Lee Branch shopping development, opened in September of 2020, giving the Tolbert family a second home base after years of building community in East Lake. East 59 previously operated a second Hoover location inside the Hoover Public Library, which it opened in 2017, but that spot has since closed and been replaced by a different local cafe concept. Today the Lee Branch location on Doug Baker Boulevard is East 59’s flagship presence in Hoover, and it continues to operate under the same family ownership and the same community first philosophy that built the brand a decade ago.

East 59 describes itself simply as a cozy, family owned cafe where community connects over coffee, breakfast, lunch, and more, and the menu backs that description up with real range. Coffee drinkers can order an Americano starting at three dollars and twenty five cents, classic drip coffee starting at two fifty, straight espresso for three dollars, a latte starting at four thirty five, or a caramel macchiato starting at five fifty. The cafe’s signature specialty beverage, playfully named the Pinkity Drinkity, has become something of a house favorite among regulars.

Breakfast options include an early bird sandwich for four seventy five, a fried egg sandwich for five ninety five, a scrambled egg plate for nine fifty, and a quiche for ten ninety five. For lunch, the cafe serves a BLT for seven ninety five, a turkey club for eleven twenty five, a reuben for eleven ninety five, and an ultimate club for eleven fifty, alongside salads like the cranberry pecan salad, the club salad, and a vegan berry salad, each priced at eleven seventy five. Sides round out the menu with a cup of soup for four fifty, a side salad for five fifty, and fresh fruit for three fifty.

Beyond the counter service side of the business, East 59 also operates a full catering and events arm, offering boxed lunches, breakfast and lunch trays for meetings, and a private venue space that can be rented for gatherings. That combination of daily cafe service and event catering has made the Lee Branch location a genuine neighborhood hub, much like the original East Lake shop the Tolberts built more than a decade ago. For anyone in Hoover looking for a real family owned alternative to the drive thru chains along Highway 280, East 59 Cafe remains one of the most established and community rooted options in the area.

The Lee Branch shopping development itself has grown into one of the busier retail and dining corridors on Hoover’s Highway 280 side of town, and East 59 has become one of its anchor tenants for anyone looking for a sit down breakfast or a working lunch outside of the typical fast casual chain options nearby. The cafe’s dining room and patio give guests a comfortable place to settle in with a laptop or catch up with a friend over coffee, while the counter service model keeps ordering quick for anyone on a tighter schedule. That flexibility, fast when needed and unhurried when there is time to stay, has been part of the formula since the very first pop-up in East Lake more than a decade ago.

It is also worth noting how unusual it is for a small, independently started cafe to still be family owned and operated after more than ten years in business, especially in a competitive suburban market like Hoover where national coffee and breakfast chains have a significant presence along every major corridor. The Tolberts have managed to keep East 59 rooted in the same values that shaped its founding: a genuine desire to give a neighborhood a place to gather, built from direct community feedback rather than a corporate franchise playbook. That history is part of what makes the Lee Branch location worth visiting, not just for the coffee and the quiche, but for the story of a family business that grew organically out of one Birmingham neighborhood and found a lasting second home in Hoover.